Third time lucky?

If one is to believe a highly placed journalist
perceived to be as pro-BJP, then Prime Minister Vajpayee could well be
accused of dereliction of duty.

Swapan Dasgupta, Managing Editor of India Today has laid the
following charges in his reputed weekly's issue of August 13, 2001.

"Vajpayee hasn't organised a meeting of secretaries
of government since assuming office.

The quarterly review of ministries -- an important
element tracking performance -- has been abandoned altogether.

The daily briefing to the prime minister by the
chief of the Intelligence Bureau -- a custom dating back to the viceroys
-- has been allowed to lapse.

Since his health problems surfaced in mid-2000, the prime minister
has become a political recluse. Apart from (Home Minister L K)
Advani with whom he interacts on a daily basis, Vajpayee has made
himself
inaccessible, except when unavoidable. He has virtually stopped visiting
the states, addressing public gatherings and meeting BJP workers.

His interaction with the press is almost zero and
his discomfiture with the electronic media is by now legion."

The above chargesheet is conspicuously silent on policy
formulation -- be it the "hot" pursuit of economic reforms or the J&K
turmoil or the Northeast impasse. And yet what it brings home most is
that whatever the political ideology of an Indian prime minister, the
holder of the world's most difficult job must, first and foremost, be a
thoroughly professional manager who is also fully fit and mentally
vibrant.

That amalgam of qualities makes one recall Indira Gandhi, voted in a
poll recently as the best ever Indian PM. She was out of power
when, 22 years ago, on a Delhi-Bombay flight, a pilot narrated his
experience as a member of the crew that flew Mrs Gandhi on a
multi-nation tour. While boarding the flight in Delhi, she personally
verified that the number of packages she had carried from home were in
fact on the aircraft. In flight, she insisted on knowing, an hour in
advance, the precise weather conditions prevailing at the airport at
which she was to alight, even if briefly, so that she could dress
appropriately, prepared for the rain or cold or winds. And once, at 4 am
on the flight, Mrs Gandhi's personal stewardess was aghast to find the
PM, slacks and all, standing upside down -- in a shirsasan
pose!

Rajiv Gandhi may have been an ardent reader of comics, but he too was a
model of physical fitness. So was Nehru until the 1962 disaster against
China made him a mental and physical wreck till death came. Yes,
whatever else may be held against the dynasty, its members had the
deportment and energy that rubbed off on the nation. Vajpayee is a stark
contrast, as much today as he was 20 years ago.

Indira Gandhi's perception of files put up to her for decision was also
talked about. A tale is told of the licence raj era when even the
location of a new private sector project needed Delhi's clearance. Two
states, it seems, were intensely lobbying for netting one such major
project. When the file came back from Mrs Gandhi's office, so goes the
story, her remarks made for stunned reading; she had, in her own
handwriting, asked for a comparative economic analysis for the project,
for the state and for the country in the two competing backward
locations. In stark contrast, Vajpayee is now accepted
as being uninterested in the nitty-gritty of issues and has, it's said,
a limited attention span after ill health reportedly committed him to
four tablets a day of high dosage painkillers.

The chairman or chief executive of a huge industrial
conglomerate is never a know-all; in fact it's impossible for one person
to know everything about every stage from purchase and shop floor to
HRD, bank credit and marketing. But the supreme boss ensures that he
selects the right team to run the show; he also has the systems in place
to monitor the team's performance on a continuing basis; he does all
this, and more, through an overall vision and perspective, through his
own experience, gut feeling and acquired knowledge.

The above formula is, of course, not possible to be
applied to a whole nation's political governance run on the Westminster pattern in a federal democracy
bound by a written Constitution and riddled with equations of caste and
sub-caste, region
and religion. All our prime ministers so far have been
hamstrung by this complexity though Nehru had the distinct advantage of
towering over his contemporaries who had proved their intellectual
mettle and national
commitment during the freedom struggle and the debates
in the Constituent Assembly.

However, Vajpayee did have the chance to scout for talent from the time
he lost Parliament's confidence by a solitary vote in April 1999 till he
was back in power in November that year. He was, in that period, running
a crippled caretaker government and therefore had the
time, despite the brief Kargil war, to search for and screen potential
Cabinet material in the event he became PM a third time. He either
didn't do that or didn't
do that adequately. Nor has he had the assertiveness
that characterises the successful corporate chairman or chief executive.

The result is that we today have a council of ministers
that largely comprises square pegs in round holes or are mere pegs who
want to stand on their own agenda and ambition.

Telecom was one sector in November 1999 where great
reforms were on the anvil. What was needed was a man who was absolutely
above board and forward-looking, an Arun Shourie, committed to
liberalisation in tune with Vajpayee. What we have got instead is a
casteist
and a populist who plays Bihar politics and other games from New Delhi.
And therefore we have found Shourie running from pillar to post, seeking
green signals
from seat warmers like Manohar Joshi who will not part
with even a fender of the Maruti car from his heavy industry stable to
push the divestment programme.

Then there's civil aviation. Earlier, we had the Ananth
Kumar with his word smithy and gumption to belittle the Tatas. After
that, we have had a Yadav, seemingly unaccountable to anyone, even as
Air-India and Indian
Airlines lose whatever status they had.

Look at the portfolio of labour where, again, reforms
were overdue ever since we accepted globalisation as the route to
faster, long term economic development. A prominent labour consultant of
Mumbai has had a mortifying experience with the incumbent minister,
Satyanarain Jatiya. It seems the minister, had to be explained the
difference between BIR (the Bombay Industrial Rules) and BIFR (the Board
of Industrial and
Financial Restructuring).

Consider now the lack of insight in ministerial positions themselves.
For years now, it has been known that the northeastern region as well as
Jammu and Kashmir needed the pointed, focussed attention of New Delhi. A
separate ministry for each was vital. While Jagmohan,
twice governor of J&K and the author of a book on the state, was
custom-made for the latter role, a path-breaking tradition could have
been set by inducting
P A Sangma of the Nationalist Congress Party as the minister for the
Northeast. Vajpayee showed no such daring and imagination. As it is,
Jagmohan is handling urban development after being shunted from
communications while Sangma cannot be given the task of even negotiating
with the Naga rebels because the latter won't accept him.

And floods, earthquakes and droughts -- haven't they been too frequent
in our country to warrant a separate ministry for prevention and
management of natural disasters?

The information and broadcasting ministry's baggage has remained the
same for 30 years: radio, television, films and the print media despite
Akashwani becoming almost moribund in the metros, and Doordarshan being
left way behind by private channels. No I&B minister is known to have
visited the decadence and despair of Mumbai's
Akashwani. No I&B minister has thought of the utmost importance of
prevailing upon the PM to merge the press/publicity divisions of various
ministries and making it take on the entire responsibility of informing
the nation of all facts of government programmes and problems on a
sustained war footing, day after day.

As though all this were not enough, there is ubiquitous
corruption about which juicy tales are floating freely.

Vajpayee looked refreshed during his Red Fort address on Independence
Day. And he was positively his old self when he replied to the Rajya
Sabha debate on the Agra summit the next day. If, therefore, he has
suddenly become recharged, and if at all he reads this mid-term
appraisal of his government, he should act quickly enough to pre-empt a
mid-term poll. If, however, he continues the way he has and yet
completes his five-year term, two repaired knees and all, it will only
be because the thoroughly divided Opposition symbolises the acronym TINA
(there is no alternative).

For PM Vajpayee, that happy outcome will truly symbolise the saying of
being third time lucky.